Isn't it sad, though, that we have abrogated our solving techniques to our computers? It used to be a sense of Literary History, a thorough knowledge of our dynamic language, a layman's reading of the Bible, an in depth study of world history - all these cognitive skills and a bit linguistic cleverness was all you needed to solve the Sunday Crossword. Now the compilers of these puzzlers have sold out to pop culture (i.e. roles in movies, awards, titles), expediency (made up abbrevs.)and silliness in inserting letters to try to form a pun. I'm weary of using GOOGLE to solve these disasters of superfluous and arcane information. Anyone agree???

Anon 4:32 PM-Me thinks, perhaps, you should abrogate your association with this puzzle and blog, as arcane and superfluous information is also derived from all the sources you cited.

I have found, through solving puzzles and reading this blog- among others- that I am often led back to the source material that the puzzle answers come from, discovering what I may have missed during my initial pass through the education process. A delightful pursuit, in my humble opinion!

Your rather erudite assessment of this puzzle bothers me in it's tone of arrogance,pomposity and conceit. One shouldn't need an Oxford education to complete a puzzle, either.

Your own use of the English language is rather impressive--but you already know that....